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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27795931">Once We Were Not Afraid of the Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_3/pseuds/Shi_3'>Shi_3</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Half-Elves, Mage (Dragon Age) Rights, Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Multi, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, There will eventually be romance, Tranquil Feynriel, Tranquil Inquisitor (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:13:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27795931</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_3/pseuds/Shi_3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He had closed his eyes and Hawke promised he would never see the Fade again. It was supposed to bring him peace. There is no peace. There is just a broken promise that Marks his hand and a broken world that suddenly needs the half-elven mage it had never wanted before.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. One Two Three,</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Elgara vallas, da'len - Sun sets, little one,<br/>Melava somniar - Time to dream<br/>Mala tara aravas - Your mind journeys,<br/>Ara ma'desen melar - But I will hold you here</p><p>Iras ma ghilas, da'len - Where will you go, little one<br/>Ara ma'nedan ashir - Lost to me in sleep?<br/>Dirthara lothlenan'as - Seek truth in a forgotten land<br/>Bal emma mala dir - Deep with in your heart</p><p>Tel'enfenim, da'len - Never fear, little one,<br/>Irassal ma ghilas - Wherever you shall go<br/>Ma garas mir renan - Follow my voice<br/>Ara ma'athlan vhenas - I will call you home<br/>Ara ma'athlan vhenas - I will call you home</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Someone was crying. </p><p>He could hear it distantly, like it was somewhere far off. As it tickled the edge of perception he thought that it sounded...familiar. </p><p>He stood carefully on the branch he was sitting on and cupped a hand around his ear to catch the sound. </p><p>It sounded almost like his mother, but that couldn’t be right. His mother was right here, sitting on the lowest branch of the tree and smiling sunnily up at him. </p><p>“Mother?”</p><p>“Yes, da’len?”</p><p>“Do you hear something?” he asked as he walked down to the edge of the branch he was on. He peered out between the leaves, certain now that he was hearing crying. Crying and the sighs of something sweeter. Something even more familiar.</p><p>
  <em> Irassal ma ghilas. </em>
</p><p>A song. </p><p>“Just you, da’len.” He couldn’t see her smile but he could hear it in her voice, all warm and gentle. If he wanted he could stretch out right here on this branch and be soothed away to sleep by it. He could forget the sounds of faraway sobs.</p><p>
  <em> Ma garas mir renan. </em>
</p><p>He wasn’t sure he could forget the sounds of the song though. </p><p>He dropped down to the lowest branch of the tree and looped his legs around it.</p><p>“I hear,” he dropped upside down so he could peer suspiciously all around without having to step down from the tree, “Singing. Do you hear that?”</p><p>There wasn’t anyone here but him and mother though. She looked strange when he looked up at her from below the branch. </p><p>
  <em> Ara ma'athlan vhenas. </em>
</p><p>“Something is calling me,” he said, frowning with concentration as he looked out from the tree.</p><p>The world looked strange upside down. He reached up and dropped his legs down, his toes brushing the grass as he hung. He shivered at the sensation. It felt strange, like the grass was fuzzy. For some reason, the world looked a bit fuzzy as well. </p><p>“Mother?” he asked, suddenly a bit scared. </p><p>
  <em> Ara ma'athlan vhenas. </em>
</p><p>She gracefully shifted across the branch so she could gently pat his hand. </p><p>“It’s ok,” she gently smiled down at him, “You can go, da’len.”</p><p>He lifted his feet away from the grass but still it brushed his skin, like it was growing up to meet his feet. </p><p>“I,” he lifted himself up farther, draping his upper body against the branch, “I don’t want to leave you.”</p><p>“Ara ma'athlan vhenas,” she sang, reaching down to brush warm fingers against his cheek. “You will be back. I will wait.” </p><p>The ground rose up to press against his feet until he could feel solid earth underneath the grass. </p><p>His mother was still tracing a warm pattern on his cheek, smiling gently.  </p><p>He stared at her beautiful golden eyes, eyes that he wished he had, and said quietly, “You’re crying.” He reached up to brush them away, but his fingers couldn’t seem to reach. She gave him a watery smile filled with warmth. Those golden eyes were too bright. Like the sun. His eyes drifted shut and he let his face bask in the heat.</p><p><em> “Ara ma'athlan vhenas,” </em>it sang all around him. In his mother’s broken, crying voice and a voice that felt like blankets all around him, or maybe like warm water. All encompassing, it held him securely, gently, and whispered that he should not fear. </p><p>Something like a kiss was pressed to his forehead. Something warm and gentle. </p><p>“Tel'enfenim, da'len,” his mother sang, “Irassal ma ghilas.”</p><p>He found himself smiling, until something wet and warm fell on his cheek. </p><p>He opened his eyes and there were beautiful golden eyes, overflowing with tears.</p><p>“Mother?” he rasped. His arm felt like rocks as he reached up to gently touch the tear tracks on her face. “You’re crying.”</p><p>“Oh! Oh, my boy!” She cried, but joyously this time. She fell upon him, squeezing him tightly in a hug he wasn’t sure would end. “You woke up!”</p><p>He realized hazily that he was stretched out on his bed. </p><p>Clarity came like a bucket of ice water washing over him.</p><p>“How long was I sleeping?” he asked, a strained note of fear in his voice. His hands clutched at the cloth at her back. </p><p>She just shook her head, almost like she was trying to bury her face in his shoulder. She tucked another sob somewhere in there, deep into his skin.</p><p>“Mother?” he asked, the notes of fear more like a full song now. </p><p>She raised her eyes to meet his, the fear in his voice seeming to call to something deep within her. Something that straightened her spine and made steel seem to shine in her eyes along with the tears. She brushed a hand through his hair and valiantly smiled. </p><p>“Two days,” she whispered. She fought to keep her tone light, the wobbly smile on her face, but he could see the strain. The strain of watching over a son who wouldn’t wake, of endless calling into the void just hoping for something to echo back. </p><p>The clarity, that ice water, felt like it had sunk into his bones. Almost like he was frozen all the way through. </p><p>His mother grasped his hands and began to rub them vigorously between hers, strained steel and sun and tears all shining in her eyes. </p><p>“It’s getting worse,” he managed to say through stiff lips. “It felt like nothing. Barely a moment.”</p><p>“You may need more help than I can give you,” his mother said. </p><p>He frowned and she held his hands to her chest, like that could warm him better. There was a coldness creeping into her own eyes though. An icy sort of clarity. She closed her eyes and kissed his hands, but when she opened her eyes she couldn’t seem to meet his. The smile kept falling off her face as soon as she wrestled it on. </p><p>“We could go to the Dalish,” he said, hope leaking out of every facet of those words. </p><p>Her smile turned brittle and dark, like biscuits left too long in the heat and that had turned into burned little lumps. He didn’t understand why she always smiled like that when he brought up the thought of going back.</p><p>“Maybe the Circle?” she asked softly, dark hopelessness cloying in her words as a stark contrast to his. She already knew the reaction a thought like that would inspire. </p><p>He shot up, fear making his eyes go wide and big, and slipped his hands out of hers. </p><p>“No!” he said, trying to sound strong and unbendable. Trying to match the steel he saw in her. There was too much fear in his voice to hold the weight of illusion though. He shook his head and tried again. <em> “No!” </em> </p><p>“Feynriel,” she sighed, already weary from old battles that had only ended in stalemates and the promise of finishing it later.</p><p>“You know what would happen to me there,” he said, a hurt and sharp edge to his voice. He thrust it out like a blade, since it was the only real steel he could find in himself. “You <em> want </em>me to die? To be a walking statue?”</p><p>She winced as his words found their mark. She shook her head as the desperation that had been filling her flowed out. “You don’t know that. They could help!” He didn’t know who she was trying to convince.</p><p>He snorted with derision and swung his legs out of bed. “I’d rather be lost to the Fade forever than be like <em> that</em>.” </p><p>“Feynriel,” she tried calling. She tried reaching out a hand to hold him back. </p><p>He did not want to push away. He didn’t want to stand abruptly and stalk away from her, but he had to. It was more bearable than the thought of her sending him away. He consoled himself that it was only across the room. Only to grab a stale hunk of bread and to gnaw at it miserably. </p><p>They couldn’t look at each other, either one of them. Too afraid of the angry heat that could turn everything between them brittle and dark, like burned biscuits. </p><p>The bread was sticking in his throat. It tasted terrible. </p><p>“Tarel wanted me to fix that door of theirs,” he mumbled through the ash, “I should get going. She might have gotten someone else to do it already.” </p><p>His mother didn’t say anything. She just watched him, strained steel in her eyes as she watched him walk to the door. </p><p>He paused there for a moment, the door jamb underneath his bare feet was firm and cold. He turned so he could look her in the eyes when he said, “I’ll be back.” <em> Soon</em>, his tone promised. He wasn’t quite sure who the promise was for.</p><p>She put on a brave smile for him though. A smile that tried to whisper to him to not be afraid. It was hard to believe when he could see her own fear in her eyes though. “Be safe.”</p><p>“It’s only four doors down,” he muttered and stepped out, before she could say anything but with her smile still lingering around him like a warm blanket around his shoulders.</p><p>He felt tempted to shrug it off as he left, but he found he couldn’t. He kept it with him the rest of the day. As he fixed Tarel’s door. As he took the few coins she gave him to the market and as he thought about how much she would like a sweet apple she could add to the bread she baked tomorrow. He kept it even when he saw her talking with the Templar in the street, and it felt twice as heavy. Even when she caught sight of him and guilt filled her golden eyes. Even as he ran all the way back home and it was all sodden with terrible weight. </p><p>“The Circle will help you!” she tried to beg, because she had followed after him. </p><p><em> “It has to, </em>” was the unspoken but not unfelt plea.</p><p>“They will put a brand to my head and take away my soul!” he shouted. </p><p>“No! It doesn’t have to be like that. There are good men there! They can help you!” she cried. </p><p><em> “Like I can’t,” </em>was the agonized echo. </p><p>“You’re a fool!” he screamed. He threw out an arm, a finger pointed with accusation to the window. “We should go to the Dalish!”</p><p>They could leave together. He didn’t have to leave alone, if she wanted him more than she wanted him gone. He wouldn’t leave her unless she forced him.</p><p>She didn’t say anything, as she stared at him, but everything in her body seemed to scream it, <em> “You do not understand.”  </em>Like he was the fool. </p><p>“I don’t understand,” he said but it was an accusation not an admittance. “Is this because I look like <em> him </em> and not like <em> you</em>?”</p><p>There was enough heat to the words that she recoiled like he had burned her. </p><p>“No,” she gasped. </p><p>He could see the truth hiding in her eyes though. Those elvish eyes that he would never have, as much as he used to pray he would. </p><p>She reached for him but he stepped back, stepped away from the hug that he knew she would tell him to walk away from. </p><p>She looked hurt at that. “Feyn-”</p><p>“We could leave <em> together </em>to the Dalish,” he said, a wistful want in his voice which hardened into something heavy and blunt. “Unless you are too ashamed of me.”</p><p>“Feynriel, <em> no, </em> ” she said, clutching at her heart like he had cut through it. “I <em> love </em>you. Ar lath ma, da’len.” </p><p>There were warm oceans in her voice. Layers of weight that he could wrap around himself and float away in if he wanted to. But somewhere within those all encompassing depths, there were terrible things. Things too heavy to walk with, if they were wrapped around him. </p><p>He shook his head and threw off the weight around his shoulders. He let it plunge to the ground as he walked away from her and to his bed.</p><p>“I’m <em> not </em>going to the Circle,” he vowed, a terrible heated anger in his heart, and he let it warm him as he wrapped himself up in threadbare cloth. He pressed his hands to his flat ears, and squeezed his eyes shut and pretended that the scalding tears that seeped out weren’t there. Just like he pretended that he couldn’t hear her soft song, the one she had sung to him ever since he was a child, clogged with her own tears. He pretended that it wasn’t etched and echoing in his very soul. </p><p>
  <em> Elgara vallas, da'len </em>
</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>When he saw her in his dreams again he walked away. </p><p>“Da’len?” she called.</p><p>He shook his head and kept walking. When she materialized in front of him, her arms wide open and waiting, he ducked underneath and hunched his shoulders as he walked away, feeling the dripping weight of an ocean trying to settle on his shoulders. He let it slide away instead.</p><p>“Don’t leave,” she said. “It is not safe.” </p><p>He whirled around at that. He shouted, “You’re the one who wanted me to leave! Aren’t you happy now? You got what you wanted. Me, locked up and away from <em> your </em>people.”</p><p>“I want you safe,” she said.</p><p>He believed her. It did not lessen the bitter taste of ash though. It did not douse the livid coals that had been banking ever since he had stepped into the Gallows, a Templar’s gauntleted hand on his shoulder and Hawke’s command echoing in his ears.</p><p>He shook his head. In a breaking voice he commanded, “Go away.”</p><p>“You do not want me gone. You called to me,” she said confidently, stepping closer and opening her arms again. “You love me.”</p><p>“If I loved you,” he took the sharp edges of his broken voice and flung them out like blades, “then I wouldn’t be telling you to <em> leave</em>.”</p><p>She looked hurt. As hurt as he had felt himself. She kept her arms open though. Like the horizon over an ocean. </p><p>He turned away and folded his arms in. Tucked all the hurt in, shielded it within his own embrace, and walked away silently. She tried to call him back. She told him she would wait.</p><p>He pressed his hands over his flat ears and walked without seeing. He didn’t care where he went, as long as she wasn’t there. </p><p>With his eyes closed, he didn’t know what it was he tripped over when he did. Something solid, but not sharp as it hit his ankle. </p><p>He would have cursed as his hands and knees hit the ground, but his landing was strangely soft. When he opened his eyes he saw that the ground underneath him had a cushion of springy, thick grass. He had barely felt his fall. </p><p>He looked up and he saw a never ending night. Scattered with stars that softly whispered.</p><p>“I thought you were going to walk right off.”</p><p>He turned on his knees, whirling around to look behind him. </p><p>A Templar, languishing against a rock. He looked like he had been caught in a moment of indolent star gazing when Feynriel had tripped right over his legs. </p><p>Feynriel’s lip curled in distaste but the Templar was watching him with a peculiar amount of disinterest. Like he didn’t care that Feynriel had tripped over him, and he didn’t care if Feynriel left. He glanced past him and he followed his gaze. </p><p>Feynriel breathed out slowly when he saw that they were atop a cliffside. He rose back to his feet and walked to the edge. He could see nothing but darkness below. Another endless night. The vertigo made him shiver. </p><p>He wondered briefly how it would feel to drop into the darkness. To be swallowed by it.</p><p>“I wouldn’t suggest it,” the Templar said, but he didn’t sound like he cared all that much. </p><p>Feynriel turned around to stare at him with a frown. </p><p>“It’s a long way down,” the Templar said with a slight shrug and then he looked back up at the stars. </p><p>“Do I know you?” Feynriel asked suspiciously, looking the man over. He looked familiar. </p><p>The Templar shrugged again. “Maybe.”</p><p>Feynriel stared at him for a long moment.</p><p>“You were that guard outside of the dormitory,” he said with sudden clarity.</p><p>The Templar didn’t even look like he was listening. Totally unconcerned. </p><p>“When one of the boys was playing with a fire spell,” Feynriel let out a little laugh as he remembered, “He set fire to one of the beds. I thought the whole place might burn.” Luckily someone knew an ice spell. It’d been a mess when the guard had finally strolled in, nose wrinkled with the smell. They had tripped all over themselves trying to lie. </p><p>“You told us that you didn’t care,” Feynriel said, a strange note of appreciation in his tone. </p><p>The Templar didn’t look at him but he smirked. “Right. You liked that.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he walked closer. “Yeah. You just didn’t care. Any other Templar I know...they would have made that ugly. Even Ser Thrask. He would have told somebody. Not to hurt us, but it would have been trouble.”</p><p>They dealt with it themselves. It’d been fine.</p><p>Feynriel was surprised that he didn’t know his face on sight. He’d been quietly hoping in the months that followed the fire that this Templar would always be the one outside of any room he was in. A Templar who didn’t care was the safest. </p><p>Even now, he wouldn’t even look at Feynriel and it felt safe to come close. To <em> look </em> at him. He wouldn’t look back. He wouldn’t <em> see </em> him, a mage just barely hanging on to the threads of himself. He’d let Feynriel kill himself before he tried to <em> save </em> him. Feynriel would die before a man like this branded him. </p><p>So yes, he really did like a Templar like him. </p><p>As he kneeled by the Templar’s side his smirk turned into something more like a smile. “You want to be left alone.”</p><p>The sentiment rang through him and resounded against parts of himself. In others...it seemed to ring hollow. </p><p>He nervously tapped at his legs and looked up at the sky that held the Templar’s lax attention.</p><p>He didn’t want to be in a Circle. It was a cold place, where the more someone cared about you the more you had to fear. It made him miss the warmth of his past, when caring used to be a comfort. It wasn’t a reality anymore though. Even if he could escape the Circle, the cold of it had sunk deep into his soul. Into his very bones. He wasn’t sure he could ever be warm again. Sometimes it made him think that he might as well stay. However, right now, looking up at the stars he thought that if he were to freeze he would want it to be in under the night sky and not in a cell of stones. But really...he didn’t want to freeze at all.</p><p>“I want things to be different,” he breathed up to the sky with agony.</p><p>He felt the stars shift. Their whispers began to beg him to give them shape. </p><p>
  <em> I will make you different. I will make you more. </em>
</p><p>He rose to his feet in alarm. </p><p>
  <em> “You could be a hero.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You could have everything you ever wanted.” </em>
</p><p>The Templar smirked and looked towards the edge of the cliff. </p><p>“I’d suggest leaving now. They’re coming for you,” he said dryly. “Of course, if you really want to be left alone then I can help you.” He raised up a hand in invitation. </p><p>“I…,” he looked up at the sky and remembered the sun. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“Then jump,” the Templar said with another shrug. “You will be back.”</p><p>He stood at the edge and looked down into the darkness.</p><p>He wasn’t quite sure what it was that made him jump. Maybe because it seemed familiar. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe it was just to stop the whispers that had begun to sound like singing. </p><p>He jolted awake.</p><p>He was in a different bed than he had fallen asleep in. In the infirmary.</p><p>He wished the clarity of his situation still made him feel cold. It had been with him for too long to feel anything but numb at the knowledge though. Getting lost within the Fade was all too easy these days. </p><p>“How long was I asleep?” he asked the healer.</p><p>“A full day. It’s night again,” she said, calm like the kind his mother had strived for when he had slept too long. This woman’s lack of worry was real though. She seemed as numb to his impending doom as he was.</p><p>He decided he preferred the cold numbness. When the First Enchanter came to talk to him in the morning he brought a worry with him that was probably supposed to be warm, but it felt scorching. The apparent worry in his eyes, the way he questioned him about his dreams, the intense way he looked at him, it all made him feel like his skin was drying out. He itched at it and scowled as Orsino told him that he shouldn’t be worried. Just to focus on his studies. Like Orsino hadn’t been worried ever since Feynriel came to the Circle and admitted to his dreams. Like people hadn’t been telling him as soon as he had come that it would end one of two ways. The blade or the brand. Mages like him couldn’t last that long. </p><p>“Don’t worry,” Orsino said, patting his hand like he was an old woman teetering on the brink of insanity and the grave. </p><p>He glared and tucked his hands underneath himself. “The only thing that worries me is the Templars finding out.” He shot a look to the open door where everyone knew a Templar stood on the outside. “If they know they’ll just take a sword to me.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t let them do that, Feynriel,” Orsino said.</p><p>“Like you can stop them,” he muttered darkly. He scowled at Orsino, daring him to try denying it.</p><p>He stared steadily at him. Undaunted. </p><p>He might actually care enough that he wouldn’t let Feynriel die. That was almost unforgivable. </p><p>“Besides, in my choices of <em> mercy </em> I’d rather the sword than the brand,” he said, breaking the gaze and staring down at his knees.</p><p>“Feynriel, Tranquility is not the worst option you have,” Orsino said calmly. </p><p>He scoffed. “Like anyone really believes that.”</p><p>“You don’t have to die, Feynriel,” Orsino said firmly. </p><p>Death and living death seemed like a small discrepancy to Feynriel, honestly. But that wasn’t a conversation that would lead anywhere with Orsino. Not when he had seen friends set themselves alight in locked closets or pitch themselves off the tower.</p><p>So he kept his mouth shut.</p><p>“You think possession is better either? Letting a demon take your body and becoming a monster?” Orsino asked flatly.</p><p>He hadn’t really thought about it. </p><p>“Maybe,” he said belligerently and jerked a chin towards where the watching Templar would be, “At least then I could fight them.” </p><p>Orsino sighed and shook his head. “There are other ways to fight, Feynriel. Better ways.”</p><p>“Obviously. Sometimes all that’s left is just bad and worse though,” he said. </p><p>“Well, we can agree on that. And we have time to decide which is which yet. Come, you’ve missed enough class already,” he said, like that was the end of it.</p><p>But it wasn’t the end of it. The First Enchanter kept wanting to talk about it. He wouldn’t leave him alone. Orsino cared too much. One day, he called Feynriel out of class so he could “help” a tranquil with stripping the sheets and washing them. </p><p>“There’s an illness going around. Some of the tranquil have caught it and are resting. I thought Orana could use your assistance,” Orsino said as Feynriel scowled at the bright sunburst on her forehead. </p><p>“Hello,” she greeted tonelessly, smiling placidly.</p><p>He tried not to shiver obviously, but it couldn’t really be avoided. The blankness there chilled him. Her large elven eyes reflected living death badly. </p><p>“Hi,” he said, trying not to frown. Not that she would have cared if he did. </p><p>“This should not take long,” she said tonelessly and walked to the nearest bed.</p><p>Orsino just smiled at him as he glared. </p><p>“Have fun,” he said, almost seeming to enjoy the ire in Feynriel's eyes. </p><p>Feynriel huffed and went to help strip the beds. </p><p>“The First Enchanter must think I’m stupid,” he said on their fifth bed, letting as much bitterness as he could out with his tone. She wouldn’t care.</p><p> Which is probably why she didn’t say anything beyond, “Lift that side please.”</p><p>“I know what he’s trying to do,” he said as he finished stripping off the sheet. “I’m not an idiot.”</p><p>She said nothing. </p><p>“They think that I’m going to end up like <em> you </em> ,” he said angrily as they stripped the lower bed. “Well I’m <em> not</em>. I’ll never let them make me a <em> walking statue. </em> I’d sooner <em> die</em>.”</p><p>She seemed entirely unmoved by his passionate declaration. If he had burst into flames, like he felt he could, she would not even blink. She would sedately take a dirty sheet and simply smother him out.</p><p>“Orsino would just rather I just roll over so he doesn’t find my charred remains in a locked closet,” he muttered. He could understand it some days. The desire to lock oneself in a closet and let loose all of the fire that burned in his blood when he thought about his life. But that would only make <em> them </em>happy. That thought burned worse. </p><p>He glared at her and said hatefully, “He wants you to convince me, doesn’t he?” </p><p>“He said you were scared of Tranquility,” she said with the utter calm of the passionless. There was no fire in her at all. “Many are scared of the tranquil. There is nothing to fear though.”</p><p>“You can’t fool me,” he sneered, “I bet you’re all screaming on the inside.”</p><p>“No,” she said tonelessly. “I never scream. I fear nothing. Pain is nothing.” She stripped the bed with unhurried, sure movements. </p><p>“That sounds awful,” he said stubbornly, ripping up his side, and shying away from memories of when he had wished for exactly that. </p><p>“Tranquility is a gift,” she said as she flicked the sheet up into the basket. </p><p>“You’re insane,” he said dismissively, leaving her behind as he went to the next bed. </p><p>She wasn’t bothered of course. </p><p>“Many have been angry at me for saying that. They have laughed. They do not understand,” she said, like it was a simple fact.</p><p>“How could <em> you </em>understand?” he demanded angrily. “You don’t feel anything.”</p><p>“Orsino said that you were like me,” she pulled the next sheet up, “Afraid to sleep. You cannot escape the demons. They follow you. They call you.” </p><p>He stared at her with horror. With fascination. “Like you?”</p><p>“I requested the Rite when I was eleven years old,” she said, ignoring the growing horror on his face, “I was going to die. I could not sleep. I could not eat. Shadows followed me everywhere. There was nothing but fear. That is no life.”</p><p>“But...but <em> this </em>is no life either,” he protested, shaking a dirty sheet at her.</p><p>“You are wrong,” she said. “I am alive. I serve a purpose.”</p><p>“There’s more to <em> living </em>than that,” he said. It seemed like a weak protest.</p><p>“Everyone has their opinions on what living means. The definition is simple though,” she looked at him and said in the toneless certainty, “I’m not telling you to ask for tranquility, Feynriel. If you need it however, do not fear to ask. It is a gift.”</p><p>He stared at her, a complicated mix of emotions roiling about inside and flashing across his face. </p><p>“Here,” she reached into her pocket and then held out a clasped black amulet. “See for yourself.”</p><p>He slowly reached out, a slight fear of it overridden by curiosity. It was a deep, dull black.</p><p>“Tranquility,” she said as his fingers closed upon the stone. </p><p>It was calm. Like a starless night sky. Like closing your eyes at the bottom of a lake and floating. Wrapped snugly in an endless serenity. It was like wading through the deepest sleeps, but with no screams echoing in the distance. Peaceful. </p><p>He frowned and offered it back silently.</p><p>“Keep it,” she said.</p><p>For some reason he did. Maybe because she didn’t really care about him. She wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if he died or if he lost his soul. </p><p>He slept better that night than he had in years. There were no whispers. No echoes. Just a serene night with no sun and no stars. It was peaceful. </p><p>Unfortunate that it was only a borrowed peace.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t think peace would be like this, before.</p><p>He thought peace would like a sweet song sung before bed. He thought it was drifting off in a gentle embrace. He thought it would be many things, but nothing like this.</p><p>Peace was toneless. Colorless. Perfectly smooth and flat.</p><p>Like glass.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ser Thrask said. He couldn’t look him in the eyes. He couldn’t even look at him. He flinched when he did, like the sunburst on Feynriel’s forehead hurt him.</p><p>Ser Thrask rubbed his hands together anxiously and glanced at him nervously.</p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” Feynriel said, and thankfulness was like peace. He had thought it was different before. Now it was just an acknowledgment of service.</p><p>“Do you...well, that Dalish woman, the Keeper, said she would take her body and give her a Dalish burial. You could leave here and attend it,” Ser Thrask said.</p><p>It seemed everything was neatly separated into two places inside of himself, the now and the before<em> . </em> What he had thought things were and would be, and reality. </p><p>Before, he would have been inconsolable at the news Ser Thrask gave him. There would have been no question in running away to the Dalish and then begging them to let him stay after. But in reality…</p><p>“It doesn’t matter to me, Ser Thrask. It probably doesn’t matter to my mother either. My time would be better spent here.” Caring was different now too. He thought before that Tranquil didn’t care. Reality was much different than what he had thought before.  </p><p>Ser Thrask’s eyes were misty. He cleared his throat loudly before he said, “All right. That’s that then.” He slapped his hands against his thighs and stood abruptly. He hesitated when he got to his feet though. He shifted and said in a thick voice, “I really am sorry it all turned out this way, son.”</p><p>He remembered sorrow. At least, he remembered for certain that he did not enjoy feeling it. That he had wanted to escape it, to be comforted. Comfort was different now though.</p><p>“I’m not,” he said, because peace was what he could offer. “Do not be upset for us, Ser Thrask. Neither of us care about the pain anymore.”</p><p>A sort of laugh was pulled out of Ser Thrask, but it was not pleasant. It was jagged and sharp, like broken glass. </p><p>“Funnily enough, Fenyriel, that doesn’t make me feel better,” he said. </p><p>He understood, because he knew now that emotions were reasonable in their unreasonableness. He understood that understanding wouldn’t make sense, because emotion was not rational.</p><p>He nodded and said, “Thank you, Ser Thrask. My mother always appreciated your help.”</p><p>He gave him a forced kind of smile, more like a wince, and he nodded. “As much good as it did her. I’ll see you later, Feynriel.”</p><p>“Goodbye, Ser Thrask,” he said.</p><p>He didn’t see Ser Thrask much after that. Now that his mother wasn’t sending him occasional messages through Thrask there wasn’t a need. Besides, seeing him seemed to remind Thrask of his mother. It seemed like it still upset him. Like it pained him. </p><p>“It’s pointless to be upset about what happened to my mother and I, Ser Thrask. You shouldn’t be,” he told him eventually. Thrask seemed surprised by the unsolicited advice, and then he seemed even more upset.</p><p>He gave him a look that he was used to seeing from others sometimes. Like he was actually made of ice and not glass. Like he was cold and foggy. Like it hurt them if they stood too close for too long. </p><p>Thrask shook his head and said, “It’s not that easy.”</p><p>Pain was different now. Before, it had tasted like coals. Now, it had little meaning. It was a tap on the shoulder, a reminder that a body had limits. It was easily reasoned with. </p><p>Pain seemed different for Thrask. It lingered. It meant more than it should. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Feynriel said, because before that was what he would have said in the face of pain.  </p><p>Thrask just shook his head again and walked away, like he couldn’t accept his apology either. Perhaps because Thrask knew he did not feel it now.</p><p>It didn’t bother him. It didn’t bother him when he never saw Thrask again. He asked where he was one day, and was told that Ser Thrask was dead. He had been dead for weeks. </p><p>Feynriel would have been upset before to hear that, but now it didn’t bother him.</p><p>He never thought before that peace would be like this. But he knew peace now. It was toneless. Colorless. Tasteless. Perfectly smooth and flat.</p><p>It was like the very air he breathed.</p><p>He never thought something like that could change. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. And the Waltz Goes On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was...strange. </p><p>His hand flared up with sudden crackling, green energy.</p><p>He <em> felt </em> strange<em>. </em></p><p>He turned his hand within the shackles and it burst out into green light again. He winced at the bright light and the pain.</p><p>It was wrong.</p><p>He shouldn’t- there was a light in his palm that smelt like<em> magic</em>. There was pain in his body that did not feel like pain should. There were <em> whispers </em>in the back of his head and coming out of his hand. </p><p>It was all wrong. </p><p>The pain shouldn’t be like this. Pain was a physical response. His body merely telling him he was hurt, that there were limits. This pain told him more. It whispered dark and insidious things to him. Pain should not speak like this. Pain should not <em> feel </em>like this.</p><p>The door before him crashed loudly against the stone wall, and he saw light. Bright, exploding, <em> searing </em>light of the deepest red. </p><p>The walls echoed with the crash and he could feel a similar echo in his heart. The memory of his heart beating <em> fast</em>, like he had been running. But his stomach twisted too, like he had been running so hard that he would throw up. Like the rotting green all around him had collected in his gut, like scum on the cobblestones in alleys, and he needed to purge it. Like something was wrong. </p><p>Something was wrong. The ground was shaking. </p><p><em> “Look!” </em>It was a panicked cry as red beams reached up into the sky. There were more wordless cries of horror as the Chantry stone cracked and the whole building was swirled up into the sky. Then it was violently spat out.</p><p><em> “What happened?” </em>He didn’t know who asked. They said it like they felt ill, like everything inside of them was tight and aching. He had no answer for them.   </p><p>Orana observed calmly, in a stark contrast to the horror around them, <em> “That falling stone will be dangerous.”  </em></p><p>A sudden rush of hot breath against his ear made him flinch. It made his lungs stutter and he didn’t understand.  </p><p>There was a prowling woman who stalked around him. She talked of death. Everyone at the Conclave, dead. She brought something welling up inside of him that made him tremble. It was something dark. Something bitter. It wasn’t sick though. It wrapped itself around his insides like chains. </p><p><em> “You are mine,” </em>it whispered, and it was hard to breathe with the way he was being held. It made him wonder if he would stop breathing soon. It did not hurt, but it did the same job as pain. It told him he shouldn’t be here. It told him he needed to-</p><p><em> “Run,” </em>something else whispered. It tugged sharply, insistently at something inside of him, like it was trying to raise him up to his feet so he could bolt away. His heart thudded like he was running for his life. </p><p>He didn’t understand.</p><p>No one wanted to die, it was not logical. But why did the thought of dying make him <em> feel </em>like he was cracking apart? Why did it hurt if it wasn’t pain? </p><p>No, pain was when the woman grabbed his manacle and jerked his hand up to his own face and his skin crackled with green lightning.</p><p>“Answer me,” she growled, getting right in his face. Teeth bared like a wolf. </p><p>“I don’t understand.” The words tumbled from his lips. The first, the only words he could speak. Why did they feel so stiff? Why did they sound like that? All tight and sharp and fragile, like a sheet of ice about to splinter under the weight of a foot. </p><p>“Explain why you are the only one alive,” she ordered, letting his hands fall heavily. She prowled around him. </p><p>He didn’t understand. </p><p>“I can’t,” he said and he wondered why it <em> sounded </em>like he was cracking apart.</p><p>She growled and lunged like a wolf for him.</p><p>Why did it make him want to howl?</p><p>She didn’t even touch him, the other woman shoved her back with sharp words before she could touch him.</p><p>So why was he wilting? Cringing away like it had hurt? It wasn’t pain.</p><p>He didn’t <em> understand. </em></p><p>He ground his teeth together and his eyes were wet.</p><p>“Do you remember what happened?” the other one asked. </p><p>He looked at her in bewilderment. </p><p>Remember? He could. He remembered <em> before. </em> When pain had twisted inseparably with <em> fear</em>. It was echoing within him. His organs clenched with phantom pain of it. His mind could still feel the shape of it, like a hand that had spent too long clutching something. </p><p>It defied logic. It defied reality. All of this.</p><p>This wasn’t his life. </p><p>He looked at his glowing hand that hummed with magic.</p><p>This couldn’t be his body. </p><p>But a hand landed firmly on his shoulder and squeezed gently. He could feel it. It made him flinch, but he looked up into the woman’s face and her eyes caught him. There was ice in her eyes. So cold it might feel like fire before it took away all feeling. </p><p>His breath caught in his lungs. It was the only thing that stopped him from howling. </p><p>She breathed out, he imagined that he could almost see her breath condensating in the air. He could almost feel it. Standing in the snow, breathing out and wondering if he would ever feel anything again. </p><p>Her face was blank, like a stone statue. It brought a moment of reason. A moment of clarity. </p><p>“Focus,” she commanded. “Do you remember anything?”</p><p>“I…I was running?” he muttered, but he couldn’t remember where. It all went foggy again. Had he been running away? Or had he been running towards something? He couldn’t remember. There had been voices, whispering voices. Calling him, chasing after him. </p><p>Like stars in a night sky. </p><p>He shuddered and the hand on his shoulder squeezed him gently again. It brought back a moment of <em> now.</em></p><p>“There was light. An explosion. There were <em> whispers. </em> They called to me,” he frowned and raised chained hands to catch hold of her arm, trying to stay here in this moment. In the <em> now.</em> “Something <em> caught </em> me. Then <em> something </em>pulled me, it pulled until it pushed.”</p><p>He could see stars, even as he tried to blink them away. Even as he tried to focus on the cold in the woman’s eyes. He could hear the echo of their songs and he could feel the <em> before </em> pulling and pushing against the <em> now</em>, like it was trying to rip him apart. Suddenly, there was a moment of equilibrium, a moment of understanding that he could grasp onto. </p><p>He looked back into the woman’s cool eyes and said with a note of urgency, “Something pushed me and I’m <em> falling</em>.” He had not hit the ground yet. He was somewhere between <em> before </em> and <em> now.  </em></p><p>The woman did not look like she understood.</p><p>“There is no reasoning to be done here,” the other woman said, with warring notes of disgust and pity in her tone. "Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take him to the rift.”</p><p>The hooded woman, Leliana, nodded and left. The other, she swiftly kneeled in front of him, and at her sudden movement he flinched. She merely pulled the keys out and began to unlock him from his manacles. </p><p>“What is happening?” he asked with confusion, staring at his free wrists. Trying desperately to hold onto the understanding he had grasped a moment ago. </p><p>She firmly grasped his wrists and pulled him to his feet.</p><p>He swayed precariously. His head felt heavy but his legs felt like they were floating. He thought of an uprooted tree, disconnected from the earth with roots swaying where leaves were supposed to.</p><p>She steadied him and gave him a sympathetic look. “It will be easier to show you.”</p><p>He trailed after her, and the movement helped him feel more grounded. The rub of cloth, the pull of his muscles reminded him that this was his body.</p><p>When the bright light from the sun hit him he stumbled again. Wincing, he shaded his eyes with his hand and- </p><p>and he could see a woman in the sun. Or perhaps she was the sun, reaching for him. Reaching to raise an uprooted tree. </p><p>“We call it the Breach,” the woman said, calling his attention back and scattering his thoughts. </p><p>He followed her gaze and saw something worse than Kirkwall. A swirling column of frothing and spitting green light. He could <em> hear </em>it. A slow explosion. </p><p>She said sternly, “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows-”</p><p>At the word <em> demons </em> he took a step back, heart seeming to stutter again. He could see stars in the sky. He could see fangs. Sly smiles. He could hear them laughing. He raised a hand and pressed it against his forehead, feeling the raised flesh of his branded skin. His mark of severance. An assurance of safety. It did not stop the thudding of his heart though. It did not ease his breathing. It did not stop the echoes of <em> before </em> from ringing in his head, the echoes of dark laughter.</p><p><em> “Mine,” </em>something whispered possessively and the heavens boomed assent. </p><p>It felt like something grabbed his hand. It was pulled to the sky, and it spat and sizzled angrily. He screamed. Not because of the pain, but because the pain told him that there was a demon in his hand trying to claw its way out. It dropped him to his knees. The sky rumbled in the distance.</p><p>“Each time the Breach expands your mark spreads and it <em> is </em>killing you,” the woman was in his face, kneeling in front of him. Her eyes told him to focus. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”</p><p>His mind latched onto the words “stopping this”. Yes. He brushed his forehead with trembling fingers. Yes, there had been a way before to stop the voices before. The nightmares. It had stopped everything. If there had been a way before, then there had to be a way to seal the echoes away now. There had to be a way to stop falling. </p><p>“Stopping this would be good,” he said, trying to keep his voice flat. Reasonable. “What do I need to do?”</p><p>She gave him a long, hard look. Her eyes flickered between the mark on his forehead and his eyes. </p><p>“We will discover shortly if your mark can possibly close the Breach. Come with me,” she said, looking like she wanted to say something else.</p><p>“Yes,” he said, slowly rising back to his feet. </p><p>She put a hand on his back. He wasn’t sure whether it was to steady him or if there was another purpose, but it helped. Just like the rasp of cloth, it reminded him that there was a now and that he was in it. Even if it felt wrong. </p><p>Even when the glares of hate and anger from the humans they walked past brought back echoes of <em> before</em>. Echoes of fire in his belly and ash at the back of his throat. </p><p>He tried to swallow it back, but it wasn’t really there. It was just the memory of it. A phantom feeling that he couldn’t seem to shake. </p><p>The hand helped, but as they passed by the belligerent looks she withdrew her hand. Feynriel tried to focus on the woman, on her words about the Divine, but they were full of pain and it seemed to echo hollowly inside of him. He couldn’t even seem to hear her words, because the ache within them was intrusive. It settled deep within his chest, dark and heavy, and began welling up. It rose up and he could almost taste the bitter tang of it in the back of his throat. It pressed far enough that he could feel the pressure in his eyes. His vision blurred, moisture filling his eyes and magnifying the light, and he stumbled after her almost unseeingly. </p><p><em> “My mother is dead.” </em>Hawke’s words were not really an answer. Feynriel was left wondering why Hawke was here. But at least it perhaps explained the way he looked. For the first time Hawke looked young, even with the beard and the heavy sword he carried. Feynriel thought it must be because of his eyes. Pooling with tears, red with the effort of trying to keep them from falling. The skin underneath almost looked bruised. They seemed dark, heavy with some sort of emotion that had also slumped his shoulders down. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said, even though he did not feel sorrow anymore. He had no desire to further hurt Hawke though. He could offer a default comfort.</p><p>“What?” a faraway voice asked. </p><p>Hawke choked on some sort of painful laugh, like it was bile and not really laughter, and ducked his head down.</p><p><em> “ </em> I’m <em> sorry.” </em>Hawke squeezed his eyes shut, tears falling finally, and he raised up a hand to hide them away. The way his lips pressed together made it apparent that he was further losing against the struggle. </p><p>
  <em> “If I had done things differently...I think my mother would still be alive. And so would yours.” </em>
</p><p>Hawke was trembling. Feynriel could feel it as he laid a light hand against his shoulder. He could offer a more honest comfort in the fact that he did not blame Hawke at all. </p><p>
  <em> “You should.”  </em>
</p><p>Hawke was crying in earnest. Shoulders shaking, fluids leaking out, breathing erratically as he sobbed. There was a darkness in him, building and bursting from all of his seams. No words, no hand seemed like it could ever comfort such a thing. Certainly not his hand. </p><p>Sudden pain erupted in his palm, like a punishment for his inability. Perhaps it was not his hand though. It gravitated towards the sky like it wasn’t.</p><p><em> “Mine,” </em>was the low boom echoing his ears as green sparks danced along his skin.</p><p>The pain was grounding though. It informed him that the hand he was clutching at was very much his own. This really was his body. </p><p>He flinched as hands grasped his other arm and lifted him. </p><p>“The pulses are coming faster now,” she said as she steadied him on his feet. Rooting him. He felt like he could tip over again at any moment though. </p><p>He looked up at the Breach, swirling and spitting in the sky. “If I close that, will everything stop feeling wrong?” </p><p>She gave him a long look and said, “I do not know. But it is our best hope. Come.”</p><p>He trailed after the woman as she talked about the Breach and the rifts and the demons, but he had a hard time retaining it all. It was hard to focus on her when all he could think about was the green flames spitting out of the Breach. How they arched through the sky like falling stars.</p><p>His hand lightly sparked, and as he studied the green light shining out of his hand he wondered if he would stop falling himself if it was gone. Falling like that green flame right above them. </p><p>His eyes widened when he realized where exactly it was falling, where exactly it would land, but there wasn’t any time to do anything about it. It hit the bridge they were crossing and set them flying with a rumble. Right onto a frozen stream. </p><p>They slammed into the ice and there was pain again, and it’s dark whispers that said everything that fell met the ground eventually. When a terror demon rose up from the remnants of the Breach that had been spat out the lingering pain whispered that he would break if he met the ground.</p><p>“Stay behind me!” the woman called. </p><p>His body was trembling too bad to get to his feet. </p><p>Which was a problem when the demon phased past the woman towards him. He dragged himself back, a cry wrenching itself out of his throat as the demon rose above him. The thought that it’s spiny protrusions looked strangely reminiscent to Templar armor flashed through his mind. </p><p>His hand struck a chest and some other junk. A staff was knocked loose from the pile of junk.</p><p>
  <em> “Do it,” the Templar cooed as he stood over him. </em>
</p><p>He could see a green star falling and crashing down to become a demon.</p><p>
  <em> “I dare you,” he said, knowing that only a fool would.  </em>
</p><p>Feynriel recoiled from the staff faster than he had recoiled from the actual demon. </p><p>“No!” he shouted, skittering away. </p><p>The demon followed, swiping out with its long claws. Pain erupted in his shoulder and he fell with another shout, rolling as he hit the ground. </p><p>He looked up at the demon. It raised its claws and he thought perhaps this might be better than meeting the ground.</p><p>Then blood and the sickening sound of a sword entering flesh hit him.</p><p>The woman was hacking the thing to bits. She wasn’t even breathing hard when she was finished. She just looked at him and asked stiffly, “Are you all right?”</p><p>Some sort of noise left him, maybe something like a groan.</p><p>He gingerly touched his aching shoulder. She kneeled beside him and carefully bent him forward so she could see. </p><p>“It’s not deep,” she informed him. “Barely a scratch.”</p><p>It hurt though. It was making his fingertips tingle and something deep inside him say <em> run </em>. </p><p>He closed his eyes and shook his head. He said stiffly, trying to reach for practicality, “I’ll live then.” </p><p>He needed help rising to his feet though. When she got him up she sighed lightly and asked, “Can you fight?”</p><p>He could almost taste dirt as he looked at her shiny breastplate. He could taste blood from where a gauntleted hand had hit him. </p><p>
  <em> “We don’t want trouble, Ser.”  </em>
</p><p>Steel eyes glittered cruelly. <em> “Then run, little rabbit. Take your filthy half-breed with you.” </em></p><p>His young friend’s eyes shone with a bitter heat. It echoed the crackling burn within his own chest. He ducked his head and helped Feynriel to his feet.</p><p>“Is that a no?”</p><p>He could feel the echo of the cobblestones hitting his bare feet as they ran. </p><p>“That’s a no,” he said, stepping back towards the broken bridge.</p><p>She paused him with a hand on his uninjured shoulder. She asked sternly, “Can you defend yourself at all?” Her gaze flicked to the staff on the ice.</p><p>He recoiled away from her, away from the staff.</p><p>“I’m no mage,” he protested. Not anymore. He’d given that up. He didn’t <em> want </em>that, or he hadn’t the last time he had truly wanted something.</p><p>Her eyes narrowed. “You are a liar.”</p><p>“I’m not lying.” He felt an unpleasant sort of warmth beginning to build in his sternum. </p><p>“You are no Tranquil!” she snapped.</p><p>His limbs tingled with the sudden flare of heat he felt deep inside. It reminded him of cruel eyes and the spit of “half-breed”. It reminded him of <em> before</em>. </p><p>His hand flew to his own forehead and he brushed his fingers against the sunburst branded there. </p><p>“And this is...what? A fashion statement?” he asked, but his voice was thin. It sounded like an actual question.</p><p>“What Tranquil would have need of this?” she demanded, reaching into a pocket and throwing out her fist. Something black swung from her clenched hand. Something familiar. Tranquility. </p><p>His hands hit his own pockets, desperately patting for a familiar bump. A familiar object. </p><p>“My amulet,” he murmured, watching as it slowly spun in the air. </p><p>“An amulet to soothe the mind and bring a sense of well being,” she said with accusation in her tone. “A useless thing to a Tranquil.”</p><p>“It was a gift,” he said, eyes still trained on the unclasped amulet.</p><p>A gift from Orana. A gift of peace. He couldn’t believe it was not with him anymore.</p><p>“Yes, because the Tranquil are known for their sentimentality,” she scoffed, “You posed as a Tranquil so you could destroy the Conclave.”</p><p>“No. I am Tranquil,” he protested, trying to ignore the heat in his blood. </p><p>She glared at him. Trying to stare him down. Eventually she snorted with disgust and shoved the amulet back in her pocket. “I may not be able to protect you.” She walked to the staff and picked it up. “You will need some sort of defense if we are to make it. If all else fails, at least you can hit the demons back before they tear you to shreds.”</p><p>She shoved the staff into his hands and pressed a hand against his back, leading him along again. It helped keep him in the now, and when her hand fell away the pain in his shoulder reminded him. But the <em> now </em> was different. It had a hollow echo of <em> before</em>. He could not stop thinking thoughts that throbbed and ached much like his shoulder did. </p><p>When they saw demons and he had to hit them off, all he could see was the falling stars that preceded them. He felt the echo of it in his bones. </p><p>He was falling, and it was only a matter of time before he hit the ground.  </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Did you know that the melody of "Once We Were" is the same as An Gaoth Aneas (The South Wind), a traditional Irish tune/waltz? </p><p>Also, the titles are all names of songs or lyrics from songs. "And The Waltz Goes On" is a beautiful piece that you should give a listen to.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Carry On, My Wayward Son</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could feel it before he could see it. A <em> force </em>of some kind up ahead. Chilling, almost like a breeze but it didn’t blow across his skin. He felt it inside. As they drew closer it began to feel more like a stiff wind. It was like it was blowing right through him, as if he was hollow. Like there was nothing to him but paper thin skin.</p><p>There was another pack of demons up ahead, but there were also two figures fighting against them this time. The woman rushed to help them, after tersely telling him to “Stay back”. </p><p>But how could he? There was a <em> rock </em>protruding from the air. Glowing and pulsating, with a force strong enough that it stole the breath from his lungs as it gusted over him. </p><p>But it did not just blow through him, it...<em> pulled </em> at him. It called to him. It <em> whispered </em>to him. </p><p><em> “Feynriel,” </em>it sang.</p><p>He drifted forward, eyes widening. A phantom touch at his wrist. </p><p><em> “Don’t,” </em> a whisper in his ear warned him. It sounded like Orana. But it didn’t, because Orana had never sounded <em> scared.  </em></p><p>There was a phantom touch on his shoulder, gripping tightly. He spun around, but there was nothing there. </p><p>“Watch it!” someone yelled, and when he turned again there was a demon. Reaching for his heart with its claws. It grew a crossbow bolt from its forehead and collapsed.</p><p>He should be concerned. He should be using the staff in his hands to beat back the things that wanted him ripped apart, but the threat of death wasn’t as strong as this other force. </p><p><em> “Come,” </em> it whispered and he stumbled towards it. <em> “Come, be whole.” </em></p><p>“Yes,” he whispered back. He was hollow. Empty. A husk just waiting to be filled, to be substantial again.</p><p><em> “Feynriel,” </em> it whispered, and it sounded like his mother. <em> “Come back.” </em></p><p>“Augh,” the noise was dragged out from somewhere deep within him and it felled him to his knees. Tears filled his eyes and something inside creaked. Like he was a thin sheet of ice about to crack underneath someone’s boot. Crack right into shards. </p><p>He choked. </p><p><em> “Feynriel,” </em> and it sounded like a distortion of his mother, dark and dangerous. <em> “Come back.” </em></p><p>He screamed, hands coming up to dig into his hair. The hair that his mother had taught him how to braid. The hair that she had lovingly stroked when he laid his head in her lap and she told him about Dalish stories.</p><p>His mother. He had left her.</p><p>“I said-” he choked on the words that were dragged up from deep inside and his hands turned into claws, “I said I wouldn’t miss her! I-” </p><p><em> “Come back,” </em>she sang. </p><p>He would. He would but he couldn’t go back.</p><p>He was in a Circle. Where there were no mothers and no sons. A prison of cold stones and people who cared too much. Where mercy was cold and cruel and love was bitter. Where everything was wrong. Corrupted. Turning them all into evil, dangerous things that would tear each other apart and eat each other alive. There was no escape. Just destruction. </p><p>His nails tore at his skin, and it hurt but it wasn’t enough. There was a greater pain inside, that clawed and screamed in ways that pain shouldn’t, and it demanded release. He dragged his own nails down his face, trying to release it. Blood beaded from his rent skin and it wasn’t enough. He thought perhaps he could bleed out every drop of blood in his body and the screaming pain would still remain.</p><p>He lifted his face to the sky and an unearthly cry, one he would never be able to identify as his own if he could not feel it ripping itself from his throat, escaped to the sky. </p><p>Still the pain choked him, it filled his veins. The screams were as useful as his nails in releasing it. </p><p>“The rift! Quickly!” some far away voice tried to call him back, but there was nothing but the pain that promised death or worse. </p><p>All he could hear was his mother’s voice. </p><p>
  <em> “Iras ma ghilas, da'len?”  </em>
</p><p>Sung so sweetly when he was a child. Sung so fearfully when he was lost in long dreams. Asked so sadly when he left, telling her he would never go to the Circle.</p><p>A face appeared before his, mouthing desperate and urgent words. Beautiful elven eyes he would never have demanded that he look at them. Eyes filled with hate. They were the wrong color. They should have been gold like the sun. Framed with faded tattoos, and heartbreak. There were tears in her beautiful eyes.</p><p><em> “I love you,” </em>she protested. </p><p>He had been so angry about the Circle. So scared. He’d never responded to her messages from Ser Thrask. He would deserve her hate, the ungrateful son that he was. </p><p>
  <em> “Come back, da’len. I am yours.” </em>
</p><p>His arm was wrenched up, his spitting hand pointed to the sky. Light exploded to collide with the rift. Like a waterfall into a pool, it frothed and churned and the air tasted of ozone and lightning. Or it would, if he could have tasted anything but blood.</p><p>He wanted it to stop. </p><p>The sky imploded, all the froth was sucked back up by the sky, and suddenly he could feel his own body again. The pain was back on the outside, it didn’t claw him from inside or make him want to scream. He could see again, and there was an elf looking down at him like he might start screaming. A bit like he might be mad. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said, quite calmly. Like he wasn’t really that sorry. “I don’t know what came over me.”</p><p>He had been thinking of his mother. Of corruption. It had upset him. He didn’t feel upset now though. </p><p>He looked to the empty sky where a rift used to be. Then he looked back to the elf. </p><p>“What did you do?” he asked.</p><p>An eyebrow twitched just a bit on the elf’s face, like he was surprised, but then he inclined his head and said graciously, “<em> I </em>did nothing. The credit is yours.”</p><p>“No, I was not in a state to do anything,” he said, quite placidly. He raised his hand and looked at the glowing green embedded in his flesh. “This. This did something.”</p><p>There was blood and skin underneath his fingernails. </p><p>“Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand,” the elf told him. “I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake, and it seems that I was correct.”</p><p>“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” the woman said, coming up from behind him. He had forgotten about her. Whatever had happened to him while the rift was open was all consuming. Judging by the blood underneath his fingernails, it was dangerous too.</p><p>“Possibly,” the elf looked back at him and folded his hands in front of himself, “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”</p><p>They were both staring at him intently. He gave them a placid smile. The woman scowled and the elf looked curious. </p><p>“Good to know,” a dwarf Feynriel hadn’t even seen said loudly. He smirked down at the glove he was readjusting. “And here I thought we’d be ass deep in demons forever.” </p><p>Feynriel noted that as his ass was quite close to the ground, then that probably wouldn’t be a lot of demons. </p><p>The dwarf looked up with a smile but when he got a good look at Feynriel his face blanched. </p><p>“Oh, Maker. <em> Feynriel </em>?” he asked with horror.</p><p>The woman asked suspiciously, “You know him?”</p><p>She wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to the dwarf, but yes, he did know this dwarf. He’d been about to have his throat split open by a slaver and then this dwarf saved him, lying through his teeth about Feynriel being a Viscount's son. Saving his life, so Hawke could send him to the Circle. </p><p>“Hawke’s companion. You saved my life,” he said, since the dwarf hadn’t answered yet. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”</p><p>“Oh, kid,” the dwarf sagged slightly and a sad look shuttered his eyes. “I don’t think I ever gave it to you. It’s Varric.”</p><p>“Varric, you know this man?” the woman demanded.</p><p>“Yeah. I even mentioned him in our little story time,” he gave the woman a smirking look that made her scowl before the soft sadness came back, “His name is Feynriel. Half-elf, would-be-runaway, and <em> former </em>Dreamer.” He looked troubled at that last statement, and gave his sunburst brand a significant look. </p><p>The elf and the woman looked at him with an intense sort of interest.</p><p>“A Dreamer? Interesting,” the elf said.</p><p>“So, he was tranquil?” the woman asked with suspicion.</p><p>“Oh, yeah. That was Hawke’s doing. Sorry about that, by the way,” Varric said, looking at Feynriel with a real sorrow in his eyes.</p><p>“I’m not,” Feynriel said tonelessly. “I should thank you for saving my life again, Varric. That demon was coming for me and I was in no position to fight.”</p><p>“Yeah, you seemed <em> preoccupied. </em>” The dwarf raised his eyebrows in question. </p><p>“Yes.” It was strange. Dangerous. It should probably be stopped. He turned to the woman. “Now that we know the mark can close rifts shall we try the Breach?”</p><p>The elf chuckled. Feynriel did not understand what was funny about it, but he didn’t care all that much either. He waited for the woman to answer him. </p><p>“Before that, you should be healed.” She gave his bloody face a wary look and then turned her eyes to the elf, “A demon struck him on the back, as well. Can you heal him?”</p><p>The elf raised his hands and cast a blue glow over his skin. It tingled. </p><p>“Thank you,” Feynriel said when he was done. “Let’s go close the Breach.”</p><p>“You’re eager,” the dwarf commented with raised eyebrows.</p><p>“No. Closing the Breach is my duty,” he said, glancing at the woman. “You may not trust me, but I will do my duty.”</p><p>She seemed wary still, but he could see a sort of approval at those words.  </p><p>“We can assume it will be more difficult than closing the rifts,” the elf warned lightly. He turned to the woman, “Seeker, you should know, the magic involved here is unlike any I’ve seen. As a Tranquil your prisoner was no mage. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.”</p><p>“He does not always seem like a Tranquil,” the Seeker said warily.</p><p>“Yes. Very interesting, is it not?” the elf said, looking Feynriel up and down. </p><p>They all gave him strange looks. He smiled, as best as he remembered how, for assurance’s sake. </p><p>“We must get to the forward camp quickly,” the Seeker said, breaking the strange moment.</p><p>The strange looks did not cease though. </p><p>The farther they went, the more they glanced at him. Looked at him. Strangely. But, perhaps that was because the farther they went the more strange Feynriel started to feel.</p><p>He could hear the magic in his hand. It whispered to him. Faintly, unintelligibly, but he could hear it. It echoed the Breach. </p><p>He felt clouded. Like a window if he rested his forehead against it and breathed against the glass. Clouded glass. </p><p>This did not seem like a good time to be clouded. He wasn’t sure how to stop it though. How to wipe it away if he was the glass. </p><p>But he should, he thought. Especially when they met up with that other woman, the icy one, and a man wearing Chantry robes and an unpleasant scowl.</p><p><em> “Mages,” </em>the templar spat. The abomination was dead, but he stabbed the smoking body in a fit of pique.</p><p>His mother was grabbing his hand. Trying to pull him away. </p><p>“-this criminal-” </p><p><em> “Poor sods.” </em> The other templar said as he stood among the dead. Ripped to pieces. He caught Feynriel’s eyes with his own as Feynriel’s mother dragged him away by the hand. <em> “Awful to be killed by an abomination.” </em></p><p>“-face execution,” the Chantry man demanded. </p><p>Feynriel flinched. He didn’t understand. </p><p>He wasn’t a mage. He wasn’t an abomination. He hadn’t killed anyone. </p><p>Or was that wrong? He couldn’t remember. </p><p>His eyes drifted shut and he let the arguing words swirl around him. Through the mountain or not? Die now or later?</p><p>The sky erupted again and the whole world shook. They all silenced themselves so the boom could echo. It rattled in his bones and the mark leapt to life. It crackled and danced and sang. It <em> hurt </em>and he didn’t understand the shape of the hurt. The purpose of it. It was telling him to come, not to leave. To forget survival. </p><p>It didn’t make sense, yet for some reason he found himself halfway convinced. </p><p>“We should charge,” he said, and was vaguely startled to find that everyone was already watching him. “The sooner we end this, the better.”</p><p>They seemed surprised, all of them, but they accepted that logic easily enough. </p><p>“Since we can’t agree on our own,” the Seeker acquiesced. He wondered if her agreement came more because that had been her plan than because of his logic. </p><p>It didn’t matter. </p><p>All that mattered was that they were getting closer. He could feel it as they climbed the mountain. </p><p>The others seemed surprised by his eagerness, how he was the first up the mountain. How he ran past the demons at the top, ducking beneath their claws. But if they could hear it, if they could <em> feel </em>it then they would understand. </p><p><em> “Feynriel,” </em>it called over the Seeker’s same panicked shout. Her yell did not go unnoticed by the demons, who turned to her instead of giving chase to Feynriel, who could hear nothing but the rift as it called to him.  </p><p>She made a disgusted noise as she hacked one in half. </p><p>“Another fade rift,” Solas said, an unnecessary explanation to the way Feynriel had dashed off. </p><p>“How many rifts <em> are </em> there?” Varric complained. </p><p>“We must seal it if we are to get past,” Solas said, throwing an anxious look to Feynriel, who was getting awfully close to a rift that could spit out another demon at any moment. </p><p>There was no room for thoughts of demons in Feynriel’s mind though. </p><p>There was just the light that called and the pull of his hand. He could almost see a woman, holding his hand as she gently pulled him along. She was made of sunlight and warmth.</p><p>He stood under the light, as close as he could. </p><p><em> “Ma garas mir renan,” </em>it breathed around him. </p><p>“Mother,” he whispered with awe, raising his hand up to the light. </p><p>He could not hear the panicked shouts from behind him. Telling him to close the rift, to step away, to watch out for the blighted demons falling from the sky. </p><p>He needed to be closer. He was empty. If he could immerse himself in the light, perhaps he could fill the gaping hole inside of himself. </p><p>His hand sparked and he remembered.</p><p>With a mere thought, a mental nudge, an arch of light extended from his hand to meet the rift. </p><p>The moment it connected great, heaving sobs wracked his frame. Suddenly he was filled with light. With warmth that promised that it was his. It spilled out of the rift, trailing pieces of light that draped around his shoulders before fading. Yet the light of the rift did not diminish. It seemed to stretch out before him like a horizon. It called to him. </p><p><em> “Come back,” </em>it whispered. </p><p>“Yes,” he cried. </p><p>The sighs of relief that had been breathed behind him when the anchor had connected to the rift turned into small gasps of surprise and wide eyes.</p><p>“Is that rift getting <em> bigger </em>?” Varric asked unhappily.</p><p>A crack appeared in the light. A shadow, a dark <em> something, </em> seemed to flash by. </p><p>Solas and Varric began running for the rift as Cassandra hacked the last demon down and yelled, “Do something!”</p><p>The crack widened. </p><p>Feynriel wanted to go back. He was an uprooted tree. He could be righted. </p><p>But there was a crack in the light. </p><p><em> “You are mine,” </em>it whispered. It laughed, rich and deep and dark, and Feynriel saw falling stars crashing into the earth and demons rising. </p><p>He felt claws in his back and he screamed, knowing death was near. He was <em> caught </em>. He would be eaten alive. Destroyed. </p><p><em> “Run!” </em>everything shouted and with a bang the rift exploded. </p><p>Feynriel stared blankly up into the empty air, tears leaking from his eyes, and he wasn’t sure why.</p><p>“Sealed,” the elf said, sounding strangely relieved, as he came to a stop beside him. “As before.”</p><p>He looked larger than life as he stood beside Feynriel, and Feynriel distantly realized that he was on his knees. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. </p><p>“A little less <em> whatever that was </em> on the big one, please,” Varric said, patting him on the shoulder. </p><p>“What were you thinking?” the Seeker demanded hotly as she joined them. Feynriel started blankly up at her, blinking more tears down his cheeks. She grabbed him by the shoulders and bodily lifted him to his feet so she could give him a little shake. “If a demon had come out of that rift you would be dead! Do <em> not </em>run-”</p><p>“Lady Cassandra,” a familiar voice called, and a familiar face appeared. “You managed to close the rift. Well done.”</p><p>The Seeker, Cassandra, looked like she wanted to keep yelling into his face but she released him with a sigh and turned away. </p><p>“Do not congratulate me, Commander,” she said flatly and crossed her arms. “This is the prisoner’s doing.”</p><p>Knight Captain Cullen’s gaze briefly flickered over Varric and the elf, but when he looked at Feynriel he froze. Fenyriel gave him a placid smile the Captain’s face blanched. His wide eyes flicked up to the brand on Feynriel’s forehead and then the tear tracks on his face. </p><p>“Knight Captain Cullen,” he greeted tonelessly, just as he had in Kirkwall.</p><p>The Knight Captain only got paler. “Feynriel? What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Orana was asked to speak on conditions in the Kirkwall Circle at the Conclave. I was accompanying her, to add a second witness to her testimony as a tranquil. I’ve been told that we failed though, as the Conclave exploded and everyone died.”</p><p>At those words, they all flinched like he had hit them. The Knight Captain looked like he might be ill. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Feynriel said. It would not do to distract the others with reminders of their sorrows. They had work to do still. On that thought he turned back to Cassandra and said, “We shouldn’t waste time. Where to next?”</p><p>“The way to the temple should be clear. Leliana was going to try to meet you there,” Cullen said, still looking a bit pale. He seemed steadier now that he was looking at Cassandra though.</p><p>“Right,” a platoon of soldiers started running past and she gave a firm nod, “Then we best move quickly. Give us time, Commander.”</p><p>“Maker watch over you,” Cullen eyes flicked over to Feynriel and he turned away quickly, “For all our sakes.” He ran to catch up with the soldiers, pausing to help one struggling to walk. </p><p>Feynriel picked up his fallen, borrowed staff and Cassandra led them away. It only took him a hundred yards to start feeling strange again. </p><p>When he saw the burning, red bodies twisted up as agonized statues his heart squeezed. He turned around instinctively, his back to them.</p><p>He didn’t understand why exactly. It wasn’t rational.</p><p>“The Breach is this way,” the Seeker said, but not unkindly.</p><p>He slowly turned himself around again.</p><p>It was impossible not to stare at the bodies. They looked like they were in pain. He looked at their twisted faces opened in never ending screams and he felt his own face twisting. He felt a memory of screaming echoing hollowly inside his own breast. </p><p>“I…” he threw a glance up to the Breach. “I do not think I should get closer.”</p><p>They all looked like they agreed, but after a moment Cassandra pointed out the obvious. </p><p>“Your mark is our only hope,” she said firmly.</p><p>“Yes,” he said softly. Logically, getting close was the only option. He nodded to himself, trying to be as firm as the Seeker. </p><p>As they passed the silently screaming dead he closed his eyes. He could hear faint echoes. Echoes of screaming.</p><p><em> “Help!” </em> A refugee. <em> “Someone, help me!” </em>The face blurred together with many others. Too many. All with desperate and haunted eyes. All people living out nightmares instead of dreams. </p><p>He could almost feel the echo of those same words in his throat.</p><p>He whimpered when a hand grabbed his wrist and firmly pulled him. It was not a woman wreathed in sun though, it was just the elf. Keeping him from walking headlong into a burning body. </p><p>He looked at the screaming, contorted face and his stomach twisted. It looked as if a burning star had fallen on her. He could recall the burning stones raining down from the sky in Kirkwall.</p><p>
  <em> “Dangerous.” </em>
</p><p>“The Temple of Sacred Ashes,” the elf said, gently pulling him along, away from the body, and nodding to the damaged stone structure ahead of them.</p><p>“Or what’s left of it,” Varric said grimly. </p><p>He saw a burnt city. A broken Circle. More blood than usual staining the streets.</p><p><em> “We must leave.” </em>Orana was right. There was no safety here for people like them.</p><p>“That is where you walked out of the Fade and our soldiers found you. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was,” the Seeker said.</p><p>He couldn’t remember walking or soldiers. A woman though, he remembered a woman. He remembered hands of light. He remembered something that had almost felt divine. </p><p>The Breach swirled up above them. </p><p>He wondered if it was being pulled or pushed. It seemed hard to tell. He felt a sudden kinship with it, he could not get a grasp on whether he was being pulled or pushed either. He watched closely.  </p><p>“I did not walk,” he said with a vague sort of wonderment as he stared at the Breach. “I fell. How long does it take to finish falling?” He did not notice the strange looks he got from that statement, since he had not really been talking to them. </p><p>Nor did he notice the worried looks he got when he continued conversationally, “You know, I’ve never really wanted to be a demon.”</p><p>“Well, that’s not concerning,” Varric said dryly. </p><p>“Tranquil cannot be possessed,” Cassandra said firmly, but there was a worried look in her eyes. She shrugged it off and commanded, “Let us go.”</p><p>Feynriel wouldn’t stop looking at the Breach. Even when he was gently tugged forward by the hand. He just trailed behind them, stumbling a bit, but a calm look on his face as he looked to the sky. </p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The temple was gutted. Nothing but bare walls that barely stood, and stone steps that groaned like they were a thousand years old. </p><p>To be a barren temple. That did not seem right. </p><p>The thought seemed quite loud when they stopped at a balcony that overlooked a large rift. </p><p>No, it wasn’t right at all. </p><p>The thought swirled around in his mind, much like the Breach swirled up ahead.</p><p>He did not notice when Leliana came, he did not notice when she left to organize the troops. His attention was stuck on the glowing rift. </p><p>It was calling. Faintly. He had to focus to hear it. </p><p><em> “Come. Be whole,” </em>it sang. It was muffled. </p><p>He lifted himself onto the bannister. </p><p>A hand caught his and when he turned his head he saw beautiful elven eyes. Shadowed with concern. </p><p>“Where are you going?” someone asked.</p><p>His mother had eyes like that. Steel and sorrow. But these eyes lacked the sun within hers. </p><p>
  <em> “Iras ma ghilas, da'len?”  </em>
</p><p>“The Fade is calling me,” he said. “It has something for me. I know it.”</p><p>Those elven eyes looked like they might understand. His mother had a hard time understanding.</p><p>“Lasa em shiral,” he said. </p><p>Those eyes looked surprised for a moment. “Come down. Carefully. I will take you to the rift.”</p><p>“Can you hear it?” he asked as those hands tugged him down. </p><p>“What do you hear?” </p><p>“She’s going to make me whole,” he said as he looked back at the rift. “I will not be a barren temple.”</p><p><em> “Ara ma'athlan vhenas,” </em>it sang and he nodded his agreement.</p><p>“Do you understand?” he asked those elven eyes. They didn’t understand. Perhaps they couldn’t hear.  </p><p>“Tel'enfenim, da'len. Irassal ma ghilas,” he sang for them, echoing his mother as she breathed it into the air, “Ma garas mir renan. Ara ma'athlan vhenas. Ara ma'athlan vhenas.”</p><p>He saw a glimmer of understanding in those eyes. </p><p>“Vhenas. Let’s go,” he said and pulled on the hand in his. Led him down, humming with his mother as he did so. It was being sung so quietly, it was hard to hear sometimes. Especially, when he led him past the red stones that sang a different song. A dark song. A red song. It reminded him of pillars of red reaching for the sky. Pillars that called for blood. </p><p><em> “Dangerous,” </em>Orana whispered, but she sounded wrong. She sounded scared. </p><p>“It’s evil,” the dwarf said as he looked at the red. He sounded nervous. “Whatever you do, don't touch it.”</p><p>He had forgotten that the dwarf was there. Varric. He’d saved his life.</p><p>Feynriel sang then, breathing more life into his mother’s song, so Varric wouldn’t have to hear the red one. “Elgara vallas, da'len. Melava somniar. Mala taren aravas. Ara ma'desen melar.”</p><p>“Why is he doing that?” Cassandra asked as he sang, trying to sound gruff. </p><p>“Marching to a funeral dirge doesn’t bode well for our future,” Varric said.</p><p>“It is a lullaby, I believe,” Solas said.</p><p>Varric snorted. “Singing the demons to sleep. That’s a new one.”</p><p>“I suppose it is calming. In a way,” Cassandra mused, watching Feynriel as he trundled along the path, completely absorbed in his singing.</p><p>“Iras ma ghilas, da'len. Ara ma'nedan ashir. Dirthara lothlenan'as. Bal emma mala dir.” His voice echoed nicely from the barren stones, layers of his voice burying the song of red. </p><p>“Tel'enfenim, da'len,” he sang but the echo that sang with him was wrong. It sent a chill through his skin. </p><p>He trailed off as deep, rich darkness sang,<em>"Irassal ma ghilas. Ma garas mir renan. Ara ma'athlan vhenas </em>.”</p><p>He shivered and it laughed. </p><p><em> “Tel'enfenim, da'len,” </em> it mocked.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” something asked.</p><p>He could almost feel a hand on his shoulder. Trying to stop him. Trying to pull him back. </p><p>“Can you hear it?” he asked back.</p><p><em>"Don’t go,” </em>Orana told him, her elven eyes wide with strange, foreign fear. He wanted to listen.</p><p>But he could feel the words already shaping his lips and filling his mouth with a strange, foreign taste.<em> “I have to.” </em></p><p>“Hear wha-”</p><p>“Now is the hour of our victory,” a voice echoed all around. “Bring forth the sacrifice.”</p><p>“What are we hearing?” the Seeker asked nervously.</p><p>“At a guess, the person who created the Breach,” the elf said.</p><p>“Is it too late to run?” Feynriel asked, but he could still taste the words in his mouth. He could still feel them. He answered himself before anyone else could, “Yes, I suppose it is.”</p><p>He drifted forward, trembling slightly.</p><p>Varric complained, “Gotta say, I liked the lullaby better.”</p><p>Soon they reach the lower level, where the rift could be reached. </p><p>“Keep the sacrifice still,” the voice commanded. </p><p>“Someone, help me!” a woman cried out. </p><p>A refugee cried the same. The elves whispered it in the streets. The very stars seemed to be screaming it. </p><p>“That is Divine Justinia’s voice,” Cassandra said. </p><p>He could feel the words on his own lips, he could feel them tearing through his own throat as they walked towards the rift. </p><p>“Someone, help me!”</p><p><em> “Close your eyes, Feynriel,” </em>Hawke commanded.</p><p>He wanted to listen, but his own voice demanded in an all encompassing echo, “What’s going on here?”</p><p>His hand lit up. Began to spit and hiss.</p><p><em> “You won’t ever see the Fade again,” </em>Hawke promised, speaking over the woman by his side. </p><p>It was a lie. His eyes were wide open, filled with terrible wonder,  because he saw. In actual physical shadows and echoes he <em> saw </em>.</p><p>The woman bound with red light. The dark monster. Himself, drifting like a sleepwalker. She told him to run. But for once, he didn’t want to run. </p><p>“We have an intruder,” the voice observed. It sounded like red rocks. It echoed some twisted song. It was evil. “Slay the human.”</p><p>“I am not human,” Feynriel protested, but his echoed self did not take objection. It just exploded out into a thousand lights, a thousand falling stars. </p><p>The Seeker was speaking to him. Trying to demand answers. Her words were not catching though. He was thinking of falling stars and the demons that rose from their remains. </p><p>“I’m not a demon,” he protested quietly to himself. He was just…he was something. Wasn’t he?</p><p>A hand landed on his shoulder. </p><p>
  <em> “Don’t go.”  </em>
</p><p>A woman was looking at him. She had human eyes. </p><p>“You must focus, Feynriel,” she begged. </p><p>“I don’t know who that is,” he said, looking past her at the glowing rift. It called. It told him it would help him remember who that was. He slid away and staggered towards it. </p><p>“Echoes of what happened here. The fade bleeds into this place,” the elf said. </p><p>“Not enough. It doesn’t flow right,” Feynriel said as he walked past the elf. </p><p>The elf might have said more, but Feynriel was focusing. The rift was trying to speak for the Breach. There was a hand over its mouth. He wanted to hear it.</p><p>It would tell him who he was. </p><p>A hand grasped his shoulder, but this time it didn’t just tell him not to go. It gripped hard enough to stop him, and then it turned him around. Turned him away. </p><p>He frowned.</p><p>Eleven eyes of steel and sorrow caught him. </p><p>“You must open the rift and then seal it,” the elf said. </p><p>Yes. His frown dropped away. Yes, that is what he needed to do. Open the rift. Journey the Fade. He was in there somewhere. He could feel it. </p><p>He raised a hand and when the magic connected him to the rift he called to it. Just as it called to him. He took it by the hand and <em> pulled</em>. There was a ray of light, a <em> sun </em>hurtling toward the ground with a faint cry. It hit the ground, and it curled up like it was in pain. With the crackle of breaking glass a demon burst forth. </p><p>The air froze in his lungs.</p><p>The demon towered up from the ground. It laughed, opening a maw of fangs wide.</p><p>He couldn’t breathe.</p><p>He felt something on his cheeks and reached up with his fingers. When he looked down, there were tears on his fingertips. There was a glowing star in his hand. </p><p>He didn’t understand.</p><p>He couldn’t <em> breathe</em>. </p><p>“Move!” A hand grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and pulled him back. Back and back, and the pressure in his chest eased, until it let go. It let go and he fell to the ground. </p><p>There was <em> pain</em>.</p><p>The demon laughed. </p><p>He sobbed, air flooding his lungs, and it felt like things were splintering and breaking in his chest. The pain no longer whispered at him. It yelled. It told him he was going to die. It told him to be afraid. </p><p>“Feynriel!” a voice called urgently.</p><p>“That’s me,” he whispered, his voice broken and brittle like cracked glass. </p><p>A hand was on his face, wiping away the tears. He looked up into a woman’s face and her eyes caught him. There was a coldness in them, like ice. They told him to focus.</p><p>“Disrupt the rift,” she commanded.</p><p>“Is it too late to run?” he asked. He begged in unspoken words to let him run. </p><p>“Yes. It’s time to fight,” she said strongly. “Disrupt it. Now.”</p><p>He sobbed, but he raised a glowing hand. He reached for the rift. It <em> pulled.  </em></p><p>He flew to his feet, lightning racing up his arm, and leaving his stomach back on the ground. </p><p><em> “Ara ma'desen melar,” </em> the dark called. <em> “You cannot run. You are mine.” </em></p><p>It wrapped strong arms around him. It held him tightly, and he couldn’t breathe. </p><p><em> “Run!” </em>something commanded, something almost divine. </p><p>“Let me go!” he screamed, trying to wrench his arm out of a lightning grasp. It held tightly. He raised his other hand, and <em> pushed </em> as he <em> pulled </em>his arm out. </p><p>The rift throbbed, constricting and cracking like it would break apart in a thousand pieces and then just going still.  </p><p>The demon cried out from somewhere far away. </p><p>Tendrils of light slowly drifted to the ground. They seemed softer almost than the ropes of light that had been coming out before. They draped over him like a weeping willow’s branches. He stared with wonder, trying to catch them in his hands. They felt warm. Somehow, they reminded him of the smelled of baking biscuits as the sun rose over the horizon. It reminded him of home. </p><p><em> “Feynriel,” </em>the lights sighed as they brushed past him.</p><p>“Feynriel!” someone screamed from far away. </p><p><em> “Come back,” </em>it sighed, a bit stronger. </p><p>“I’m scared,” he said, a revelation and a confession mixed together. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not anymore. But here he was, finally understanding why his pain felt all wrong. Why it felt like something from <em> before</em>, where pain and fear mixed together inseparably. </p><p>“Feynriel!” someone screamed desperately. </p><p>He looked back. There was a demon kneeling. Not laughing anymore.</p><p><em> “Tel'enfenim, da'len,” </em> the dreaded dark said with a low chuckle. </p><p>“Seal the rift! Now!” the Seeker yelled.</p><p>He whirled back to face the rift. It was crackling. It seized his hand with a vengeance. His palm raised to the sky and he was <em> pulled</em>. </p><p><em> “Come back to me,” </em>the evil called. </p><p>“I’m not a demon.” The words tumbled from his lips. All tight and sharp and fragile, like a sheet of ice about to splinter under the weight of a foot.</p><p><em> “You will be,” </em>it laughed.</p><p>The rift swelled. </p><p>He could see it, darkness within the light. Stars and suns that fell and shattered on the ground so they could rise as demons. </p><p>He screamed as he was pulled by the rift. His legs buckled and his knees cracked painfully on the stone. He tasted blood. Great, heaving sobs wracked his frame. </p><p>“I don’t want this!” he screamed to the rift. He wanted it to <em> stop. </em></p><p>The sky imploded. </p><p>The earth <em> shook. </em></p><p>They all fell, thrown back harshly by the powerful blast. Ears ringing and bones rattling from the boom. </p><p>Then a moment of silence. A moment of awe. </p><p>Then a wail rose to the sky. The pain of it was like a phantom knife to the gut. It was enough to make someone’s lungs stutter. It sounded like a dying animal. </p><p>It was Feynriel, lying on his back, tears streaming down his face as he cried like the world was ending. Staring sightlessly up into the Breach. </p><p>He could not stop crying. He felt like he was watching from afar, as his body shook.</p><p>“Oh, Maker’s <em> balls</em>,” Varric muttered as he jogged over.</p><p>Leliana was kneeling beside him, holding his shoulder, brushing his face. </p><p>“Feynriel?” she asked, worry bleeding out of her voice. He couldn’t meet her eyes. </p><p>That was because he was watching himself. He wasn’t in his own body.</p><p>His body sobbed so hard that what little in his stomach was expelled. He was flipped over so he didn’t choke himself, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t even breathe properly. He was maneuvered onto his hands and knees.</p><p>“What is happening?” Cassandra asked with restrained panic.</p><p>“Someone snap him out of it,” Varric demanded, with more apparent panic.  </p><p>“Hold him upright,” Leliana told Cassandra.</p><p>It was the slap that seemed to bring his mind back to his body. The sharp pain. He only began to scream as he cried then. The pain was all wrong. It told him he was going to die. It told him that he should be afraid. </p><p>“Maker it hurts!” he screamed. “Why does it <em> hurt?</em>”</p><p>They tried to call him. They said, “Feynriel”, but he didn’t know who that was.</p><p>All he knew was pain. He was filled with fire. A burning temple.  </p><p>He began begging the Creators to make it stop. The Maker to make it stop. Anything to make it stop. To please, please-</p><p>“Please, make it stop!” he screamed and sobbed. “Dread Wolf take me!”</p><p>“We gotta do something!” the dwarf yelled above him, which was difficult to do, “The kid is dying here!”</p><p>“He is inconsolable,” the elf said. </p><p>“Can you put him to sleep?” the woman asked of the elf.</p><p>He nodded and pressed a hand glowing cool blue to Feynriel’s head, but that only made him fight. </p><p>“No! I never wanted to be a demon!” he screamed, shaking his head and dislodging that glowing hand, “Hawke promised!”</p><p>That hand followed, determined, and he tried to smack it away. That was when he realized the glowing mark upon his own hand. He started tearing at it with his other, trying to rip it from his skin. </p><p>“Take it back!” he screamed, as the Seeker pulled his arms back. “Pull me back! I don’t want to <em> fall!</em>”</p><p>“Restrain him!” the elf snapped as he flailed wildly.</p><p>The Seeker kneeled behind him sitting on his legs and pinning his arms behind his back in a crushing embrace.</p><p>“I can help you, Feynriel,” the elf said and tried to press a glowing hand to his head. </p><p>“No!” Feynriel screamed like he was being murdered, shaking his head wildly. “Get it out!”</p><p>Varric had to hold his head still long enough for Solas’s magic to seep into his mind. Still he fought.</p><p>“Stop,” he begged deliriously. </p><p>Patiently, steadily Solas pushed his magic into Feynriel. Until everything was slowly smothered out and Feynriel was quiet, sagging limply against Cassandra.</p><p>It became shockingly apparent that the Breach was quiet too. No more humming. No more rumbling. No more booms. </p><p>The silence was sharp, without Feynriel screaming into it.</p><p>“Well, <em>shit</em>,” Varric said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lasa em shiral- Let me journey</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Elgara vallas, da'len - Sun sets, little one,<br/>Melava somniar - Time to dream<br/>Mala tara aravas - Your mind journeys,<br/>Ara ma'desen melar - But I will hold you here</p><p>Iras ma ghilas, da'len - Where will you go, little one<br/>Ara ma'nedan ashir - Lost to me in sleep?<br/>Dirthara lothlenan'as - Seek truth in a forgotten land<br/>Bal emma mala dir - Deep with in your heart</p><p>Tel'enfenim, da'len - Never fear, little one,<br/>Irassal ma ghilas - Wherever you shall go<br/>Ma garas mir renan - Follow my voice<br/>Ara ma'athlan vhenas - I will call you home<br/>Ara ma'athlan vhenas - I will call you home</p><p>Guess I hate myself so I'm trying to do another long fic in another fandom! What can I say, I'm a sucker for unlikely inquisitor/ tranquil inquisitor stories.<br/>Thanks for reading, and please let me know if you want to see more of this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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